The MAV, together with the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia holds Annual Reporting Awards for Victorian local government.
 
The first year of the awards was in 2000, which were in respect to the 1998/99 financial year. This initiative followed the findings of the Code of Good Annual Reporting Taskforce formed by the MAV in 1998 with a view to promoting and encouraging best practice in annual reporting in local government.
 
The aim of the awards is to encourage excellence in the content, clarity and presentation of information to the users of local government annual reports. The Awards Assessment Committee reviews all Victorian local governments' annual reports in order to critically assess their content and presentation and to issue awards.

Award winners from 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 are available under Resources in this page.

To continually improve the awards the Committee in 2006 reviewed the marking assessment form, award categories and judging process.

For the 2008/09 Awards were presented for the following categories:

• Best Summary (high / low resource)
• Best Financial Overview (high / low resource)
• Best Reporting on Performance (high / low resource)
• Best Reporting on Corporate Governance (high / low resource)
• Best Reporting on Sustainability (high resource)
• Best Annual Report 2008/09 (high / low resource)
• Best Annual Report 2008/09 Regional Library Corporation

The key assessment criteria used by the Committee can be summarised as:

• The overall impact and presentation of the document
• The use of overview and highlight sections outlining the mission and vision of council and key achievements and major events during reporting period
• Accountability of performance against corporate plans and budgets
• The corporate governance practices adopted by the council
• The reporting of people issues including councillors, staff, community and human resource management issues
• The extent of "Plain English" reporting if financial results and compliance with external reporting obligations
• Use of innovation in conveying messages more clearly

Councils are encouraged to refer to the guidelines document below when preparing their 2009/10 Annual Reports.

Guidelines
Download Annual Report Awards Guidelines File size: 51 KB

2010 Award Winners
Download 2010 Award Winners File size: 13 KB

2009 Award Winners
Download 2009 Award Winners File size: 17 KB 

2008 Award Winners
Download 2008 Award Winners File size: 17 KB

2007 Award Winners
 Download 2007 Award Winners File size: 24 KB

2006 Award Winners
  Download 2006 Award Winners File size: 24 KB

2005 Award Winners
  Download 2005 Award Winners File size: 70 KB

2004 Award Winners
  Download 2004 Award Winners File size: 9 KB

2003 Award Winners
Download 2003 Award Winners File size: 69 KB

2002 Award Winners
Download 2002 Award Winners File size: 6 KB